


Catching Love

by gingerfic



Series: An Alphabet of Samcedes Stories [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Parents, Baby, Childbirth, Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Humor, samcedes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 22:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5022580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerfic/pseuds/gingerfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their first baby is on her way. It’s going to be quite the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually based on a conglomerate of real experiences...brownie points for anyone who can guess which parts are real and which are exaggerated or made up. :)  
> Warning for (uncomplicated) childbirth, though I don’t think that should need a warning...but this is rated T just in case. It’s not graphic. This is first and foremost a love story with comfort and humor in the details.
> 
> beta by the fantastic voyagehk

“Sam, wake up,” she hissed at him for the third time. 

“Uhhhh?” he muttered, finally rolling to face her as she leaned over the edge of the bed.

“Wake up, this is it.”

Though Mercedes’ words hadn’t gotten any louder, their content was enough to jumpstart Sam into full action mode. He leapt out of the bed and pulled on a pair of pants in one smooth motion. Then he started wrestling a t-shirt, got it twisted around his head and armpit and got stuck in it, stubbed his toe on the corner of the closet door, and fell down in a heap.

“Babe, calm down,” Mercedes stifled a smile. 

“But you said this is it! The baby’s coming!”

“Yes, the baby’s coming, but it’s still going to take a while. The books say that a first labor is often pretty long.”

Sam got the shirt pulled down over his stomach and squinted at the bright red numbers on the clock on the nightstand. “It’s one in the morning.” He flopped back onto the bed. “And you’ve been having contractions on and off for two weeks. How do you know for sure that this is it?”

“Because I’ve been having them for three hours and they aren’t stopping when I pee or get in bed or take a shower or anything.”

Sam sat bolt upright again. “You’ve been having contractions for three hours? Why didn’t you wake me before?”

She shrugged and sat next to him. “I wasn’t sure at first whether this was it. And then when I was sure, I knew it was still early and I didn’t see a point in making you get up earlier than you had to.”

“Oh my god, I have to do sub plans! If we’re having a baby today then I can’t go teach my classes, I have to write plans for the substitute! I have to  _ get _ a substitute!”

Mercedes snickered. “I know. That’s why I woke you.”

“I’m just gonna, um, I can call the automated sub-finder, and I can email the plans to the school secretary. So I don’t have to drive over there…” he muttered to himself as he pulled himself back out of the bed.

“It’s still early babe, I’m pretty sure we’ve got at least a couple of hours before we need to go to the birth center. Take care of what you need to do. I’m gonna go get in the shower for a while.”

\-----

By an hour later Mercedes had run out all the hot water in the house and Sam had gotten all of the arrangements handled for his substitute. 

“Go take a nap, Sam,” Mercedes told him as she sat on a big exercise ball and slowly rotated her hips around on it. “I can’t sleep right now, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.”

“Does it count as a nap if it’s still the middle of the night?”

She playfully shoved him off toward the bedroom, nearly unbalancing herself in the process. Sam caught her hands and then her sides as he helped her regain her stability.

“Promise you’ll wake me when you need anything? A drink of water? The midwife said it’s important to go to the bathroom every hour so I have to make sure you--”

“I’m in labor, Sam; not on my deathbed. I can get myself a drink, and I know how to pee by myself.” Mercedes was grateful to have such a sweet, supportive husband (it was probably a good sign for the years of parenting ahead), but right now there was nothing he could actually do and his erratic energy was sort of annoying. “Just go to bed. I’ll get you when I need you.”

“If you’re sure…” Sam still wasn’t entirely comfortable leaving his laboring wife alone.

“I’m sure. Now go already!”

\-----

Sam tossed and turned for a couple of hours. He knew that sometimes Mercedes needed her space, and it was true that he couldn’t do much at this point… But he also couldn’t really sleep with the knowledge that she was in labor in the next room. In fact, he had just decided that he wasn’t going to be able to sleep at all--and that he should just give up and get up--when he was awakened by the sound of the shower running and realized that he must have fallen asleep after all.

He slipped quietly into the bathroom. He could see through the frosted glass door that his wife was leaning against the back wall of the shower, letting the hot water run down her back. She was slowly shifting back and forth, and wordlessly singing to herself.  Sam almost felt like an intruder, but he also didn’t want to be left out.

“Mercedes?”

“Yeah Babe?”

“How’re you doin?”

“They’re getting closer together and longer I think. I haven’t tried timing them in a while though because it’s getting…” her words dropped off and after a moment she resumed the mellow “aaahhhhh” she had been making when Sam came in.

Worried, Sam pulled the shower door open and found her, still leaning on the wall and moving her hips. Her eyes were closed and her head was down as the hot water pounded on her lower back, now splashing out and all over Sam as well.

After a few moments she lifted her head, opened her eyes, and at the sight of her husband she burst out laughing. 

“You’re soaked!”

“I wanted to make sure you were ok.”

“It’s just a contraction, Sam. I’m fine. It’s just that I can’t really think about anything else when I’m having one. Now close the door, you’re letting the cold air in!”

\-----

It was around five in the morning that they started to the birth center. Sam had used a stopwatch to time Mercedes’ contractions and concluded that they had reached the five-minutes-apart and one-minute-long for an hour criteria that the midwife had given them.

Mercedes had used all the hot water again so she was getting dressed when Sam called the midwife to let her know that they were on their way.

“Lay a towel on the seat of the car in case her water breaks on the way,” the midwife, Amy, instructed Sam. “And calm down, Daddy. Drive safely. It’s going to be fine. I’ll see you both soon!”

Mercedes had packed her bag a month ago, so getting out the door was easy. Once they started driving though things changed.

“I don’t know who had the idea of driving somewhere while in labor,” Mercedes spat. “Oh my god seatbelts are the most uncomfortable thing on earth. Honestly, back in the dark ages when they had babies at home  _ that _ was an idea! They didn’t have to go anywhere or put on clothes or anything.  _ That _ was the life!”

“They didn’t have running water in the dark ages,” Sam said helpfully.

“Yeah, but they didn’t have to endure contractions in seatbelts. Honestly this whole idea was definitely invented by someone who had never done it. Because it’s stupid.”

Sam drove as quickly as he dared, and repeatedly thanked god that the birth center was only fifteen minutes away and that Mercedes only had to deal with four contractions en route.

\-----

Amy met them at the door and led them to their room. It looked almost like a bedroom, aside from the huge tub on one side, but Sam knew that all the cupboards and closets held medical supplies in case of emergency. 

One of Mercedes’ backup dancers had given birth at the center last year, and had not stopped raving about it ever since. When Mercedes had announced that she was pregnant, Tanya had insisted that she check it out. 

Mercedes had liked the idea from the beginning. “My body knows how to deliver a baby just like it knows how to make one and grow one,” she assured Sam. “This is going to be perfect.”

“But they can’t do an epidural at the birth center,” Sam had worried. “You’ve never done this before. Wouldn’t you feel better if you knew that you had options?”

“If I change my mind in the moment, we can always transfer to the hospital,” Mercedes assured him. “But I feel really good about this choice. I really want to do it.”

“You’re the one having the baby; it’s your choice and I’ll support you,” Sam had decided.

Now that they were actually here, in a homey environment instead of a clinical one, Sam had to admit that it was pretty nice. He had expected Mercedes to head for the bed but she didn’t. 

“How long will it take to fill the tub?” she asked Amy.

“About ten minutes,” Amy said with a knowing smile. “I’ll get it started right now.”

“Awesome,” Mercedes grinned as she waddled toward the bathroom. “I’m just going to go pee again…”

\-----

Before getting in the tub Mercedes got on the bed for a minute so that Amy could check her progress. 

“Do you want to feel?” Amy asked them both as she pulled the glove off her hand

“Feel?” Sam gulped, but Mercedes was already reaching her hand between her legs.

“Oh my god, that’s so weird!” Mercedes gasped, moving her hand around a little. “So cool, but so weird!”

Not that he was uncomfortable with touching his wife, obviously, but wasn’t that supposed to be dangerous during labor?

“Her water isn’t broken, there’s no risk of infection,” Amy encouraged.

“Seriously, Sam, get your hand in here!” Mercedes added. 

Sam was speechless. “It’s like, a balloon, but slippery. And you can tell it’s so strong…”

“That’s the amniotic sack,” Amy smiled. “It usually bulges out for a while before it breaks.”

Mercedes arched her back and Sam pulled his hand back hurriedly, glancing back and forth between his wife and Amy as Mercedes began to writhe and moan. 

“You are doing wonderfully, Mercedes,” Amy said calmly. “You are amazing. As soon as you finish this one we’ll help you get into the tub.”

\-----

_ “ Oh my god!”  _ Mercedes yelped. She was kneeling up in the tub, her arms crossed on the edge and her head laying on them. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Sam was right next to her, kneeling on a pillow beside the tub so that he could press on her hips or back during contractions.

“That pop!”

“What pop?”

“It was probably your water breaking,” Amy supplied. She was sitting in the rocking chair a few feet away.”

“How could you not hear that!”

“We didn’t hear anything,” Sam assured her.

“You know how bubble gum goes when the bubble pops? It felt like that.”

Sam was about to repeat that he hadn’t heard anything but Mercedes started aaahhhhhhing again so he returned to squeezing her hip bones and using a big bowl to pour hot water over her back. His arms were getting tired, but he knew that he had the easier job here so he didn’t say a word.

\-----

“I can feel it, oh my god, I can feel her coming down,” Mercedes gasped. She was vaguely aware of Sam, Amy, and Amy’s apprentice moving around her, but her eyes were closed and she felt like she was floating in some other dimension. She felt the baby’s head moving down through her and had the passing thought _‘_ _ it will never fit’ _ followed by a sensation that was something like throwing up only going in the other direction. 

Then Amy was talking. “Do you want to see your baby? Or touch her?” Amy held up a hand mirror and slanted it so that Mercedes could see between her own legs.

“Oh my god, look at all that hair!” Sam said in awe. At some point he had shucked his t-shirt and was now in the tub in his swim trunks. 

Mercedes reached down and felt something soft and fuzzy--her daughter’s head--pressing out between her thighs. It was surreal and amazing and unnerving all at once. And then her body forced her to push again.

“Ok Sam, your hands here, like this,” Amy guided him, her hands right beside his to catch the little girl as she emerged into the world.

\-----

Sam had had mixed feelings when Amy had first told him that he could catch the baby if he wanted to. He had thought about it for several weeks before making up his mind that he wanted to do it. When it came down to the moment though, as the woman he loved more than anything grunted and pushed and he finally saw the tiny girl they had made together making her entrance, Sam knew that he wanted to be the first one to welcome her to the world. He also knew, without hesitation, that he would do anything for this little girl.

“You did it!” Amy announced gleefully as Sam found that he suddenly had an entire baby squirming in his hands. He hardly noticed Amy’s hands guiding his as he brought his daughter to the surface of the water and then against his body.

Mercedes reached her hands out, and Sam scooted over next to her and gently passed the baby over and then wrapped his arm around his wife instead.

“She’s beautiful.”

“She’s perfect.”

\-----

In the days that followed Mercedes would remember some moments in vivid detail, while others would be mushy, as though seen through a dusty filter. She remembered moments of irrational fear (like worrying that the baby wouldn’t fit out or would somehow get hurt as she was born). She remembered moments of serenity and faith in herself (like when she had stood in the shower, singing and fully believing that her body could do what it needed to). She remembered feeling embarrassed at the volume of some of the noises she had made. She remembered Sam holding her hands, staring into her eyes, and telling her to breathe in, and out, and in, and out. She remembered Amy’s constant encouragement. But most of all she remembered the moment when her baby was placed in her arms, and thinking that it was all worth it.

“You know,” Sam said, scooting next to her in the bed and looking at the tiny child cuddled between them. “Sometimes I look at her, and I can’t believe we made something so amazing.”

“I know.”

“It kinda makes me want to have more.” He grinned at her with a twinkle in his eye. 

Mercedes raised an eyebrow at him.

“I mean, not like right away, but eventually.”

Mercedes giggled. “Me too, Sam. Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is me on my tiny soapbox, but I believe that there is a lot of value to telling positive birthing stories (because society seems to prefer telling the horror stories, which leads women to fear childbirth and turns it all into a vicioious cycle). I know this isn't a particularly common kind of story to tell in fanfic, but I hope you enjoyed it. :)


End file.
